“I don’t look at it as leaving anything behind,” says Osborn, who made the move last September. “I’m bringing all that I’ve learned from the creative part of the equation and I’m trying to apply that through a whole new aperture. Media is closer to the customer, the consumer, than anything else.”

In this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018, Osborn talks about game-changing technology and advocates for cause marketing as a way to improve people’s lives and give marketers an “economic multiplier.”

When Osborne joined BBDO 25 years ago to work on the Pepsi account, the media side of the traditional full-service agency was considered “a bunch of numbers.” What’s changed is that “we have the data, we have the analytics that tell us who to go target and how they behave, which sets up the foundation of the entire strategy framework.”

Emerging technologies like augmented reality and robotics aren’t front and center on Osborne’s radar screen. At least not yet. Voice-activated devices, the connected home and artificial intelligence seem to have more near-term potential.

“AI is really, really powerful,” says Osborne. “It’s a game changer. Because if it can make our customers’ lives easier, more fluid, more relevant to how they want to live their life, then that’s really, really of high value.”

At CES, OMD is joined by more than 100 clients. Some are obvious—Apple and Intel—others less so, including Clorox, Cigna and State Farm. Osborn says they’re all seeking to apply innovation and invention to their business models to be smarter and more relevant to customers.

“We want to peak their imagination and really push them to think about things from a whole different standpoint.”

Osborn is a supporter of the Red Cross and other philanthropic organizations, so he appreciates the value of cause marketing, calling it an “economic multiplier.” Finding the right cause to align with varies from brand to brand.

“But I will tell you this. Usually it’s much more powerful if the people that work within the company share in the delivery of that sense of purpose as well as the messaging part of it as well.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018. Please visit this page for more coverage.

This means that things like self-driving cars, drones, artificial intelligence and virtual reality take a back seat to the “undercurrent” that drives merger and acquisition activity.

“The single biggest driver in terms of what we see here at CES and how that translates into deal activity is convergent TV,” Kawaja says in this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018. “You see all of the big linear TV companies, both content and distribution, are here.”

So what are those players discussing? Not shows or content in general.

“They are talking about technologies that allow the targeting and delivery of specific content and specific advertising to individuals and homes because of the new way that TV is consumed by consumers.”

Citing ongoing deals involving AT&T and Time Warner and Disney’s desired acquisition of certain Fox assets, what excites Kawaja is that the industry is complex, fragmented and dynamic.

“When you get significant sea changes like these technology applications to a $160 billion television market, obviously people make their moves,” he says. “There’s a lot of moving parts right now, and companies in both legacy and the sort of digital world are positioning themselves for that by making moves that aggregate distribution, content, getting scale.”

Considering the TV advances and desires of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, everyone else has “clearly figured out that scale is now on a whole new level and they have to get ready.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage. 

“Make an impact, make peoples’ lives better, build businesses, create jobs, build brand equity. I think that’s really positive,” Stengel says at the annual gathering of the Association of National Advertisers.

Spoken like a true educator, befitting Stengel’s status as Senior Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, which he joined this summer to help run the Kellogg Markets and Customers Initiative. In addition to Masters of Marketing, he still keeps tabs on events like Advertising Week in New York and is well versed with marketers’ concerns about brand safety within the digital media ecosystem.

In this interview with Beet.TV, Stengel, who runs the consultancy Jim Stengel Co., talks about the importance of giving creatives a free rein to collaborate with marketers so that each brand can activate its unique purpose.

“I think the creative community still brings so much value to companies,” Stengel says. “The ones that are getting the most value from the creative community are the ones that are sharing their business challenges, sharing their opportunities, sharing their business goals and giving them simple, inspiring briefs.”

A good example would be Apple’s Think Different campaign in the late 1990’s because it derived from a simple brief, according to Stengel.

“Make us relevant again. That’s what Steve Jobs said.”

Whether it’s computers or Cadillac’s desire to build “a modern luxury brand,” the creative minds involved should benefit from shared thinking and then be free to follow their instincts.

“You don’t want to put creative people into a disciplined silo,” Stengel says. “Get really good people, get a sense of team, give them your purpose your business challenge and then let the ideas fly.”

He’s happy to hear discussions about purpose, ambition, meaning and ideals as brands try to stay relevant in a sea of consumer choices.

“Purpose is here to stay,” Stengel says.

This video is part of a Beet.TV leadership series produced at the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference, 2017. The series is presented by FreeWheel. Please find more videos from Orlando, visit this page.

In this interview with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress 2017, Delport opines that while this year is one of transition and incremental innovation, there’s no ignoring the strides being made by telcos. “They are organizing our digital life. They just want to be back in the race,” he says.

Artificial intelligence is one means of gaining the upper hand with mobile users. Delport cites Telefónica’s announcement at MWC heralding its new AURA platform, which the company describes as “the basis for a new relationship model with customers.” AURA will make “cognitive sense” out of the flow of user data while giving users the means to control which data are used, the company says.

Augmented knowledge about mobile device users, including sharing of devices, will help telcos understand “all these weak signals that will be activated for advertising purposes,” Delport says.

Surveying the landscape of major U.S. players like AT&T and Verizon upping the ante on content creation, he says it’s a clear sign that “convergence is back.” It’s a major reason why telcos induce users to sign up for bigger data packages so that they spend more time consuming content.

Responding to the desire for premium content, Vivendi Content in Latin America and Europe recently launched Studio+, which the company describes as “the first global premium short series offer for mobiles.” Delport, who is also Chairman of Vivendi Content, describes the offering as 10-minute episodes in a series of 10.

The backdrop to the telcos’ advertising and content plays is the increasing integration on the part of  Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. “They are fascinating but also a bit scary for the other players,” he says.

Delport refers to a prediction that in the next three years, 80% of mobile bandwidth will be consumed by mobile video. “It’s just beginning,” he says.

This video was produced in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress 2017. The series is sponsored by Turner. Please visit this page for additional segments from MWC.

“I think a lot of us are trying to find out what is the new format. Is it 30 seconds or is it 10 seconds or is it two minutes,” says Ruhanen. “We’re really stretching out to find out what is the right kind of engagement for the customer.”

In an interview with Beet.TV at CES 2017, Ruhanen sees a “real arc to try to work out how to manage” clients’ production budgets.s.

This leads to discussions like, “We’re going to push this out, it’s going to be immediate, we’re going to take it back down. It’s not there to go run in the Super Bowl,” says Ruhanen. “I think it’s really an ongoing conversation with clients right now.”

Citing some 19 client wins from 22 account pitches over the last two years, Ruhanen says marketer expectations of great creative output “is like table stakes” for TBWA. “What’s interesting about that is it wasn’t about the work as much as what it used to be,” he says. “It’s much more about how do you work, how do you uncover insights, where do we get knowledge.”

Marketers, he notes, are “very stretched internally” so they’re looking for proactive business partners.

Competition for hiring the best talent is pitched. “And what it’s replacing is sort of the service culture. It’s much more into knowledge culture,” Ruhanen says. It’s led TBWA to hire journalists, people from Wall Street and “a lot of people, believe it or not, out of national security.”

A winning element of creative executions is cultural touch points in an age of global stress and strain. Ruhanen points to TBWA’s annual holiday campaign for Apple and an effort for ANZ bank in Australia.

The Apple ad features an iPhone-using Frankenstein who lives a Grinch-like, secluded life until he ventures into a local village and finds friendly people, as Tech Crunch reports. “That was incredibly timely and very, very impactful,” Ruhanen says.

In the ANZ campaign, which targeted females, youngsters are doing tasks for pocket money but the boys are unknowingly paid more than the girls. “I think doing things that are culturally relevant, that are about some of the tensions that are in society right now” are the ones “that are really hitting home,” says Ruhanen.

This video was produced as part Beet.TV’s coverage of CES 2017 presented by 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

“I think one of the challenges that we’ve still got with that technology is consumers are really looking for that frictionless experience,” Di Richardson, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at global media agency UM Worldwide, says in an interview with Beet.tv. “We’ve been trained now with our phones, the way we live, that we don’t expect there to be dysfunction in our technology.”

Richardson cites as one example the latest iteration of wearable video technology (think Google Glass). “Time will tell, but what’s happening with Snapchat Spectacles right now, I think it’s a lot more seamless experience,” says Richardson. “I think once we get a more seamless experience, we can then have the ability to take that to more people more often.”

And there are always the contributions from Apple to inspire more fluid human/technology interaction. “Think about what Apple have done really well, they think about it from the consumer experience. I think we need a little bit more of that in some of the tech that’s being developed,” she adds.

While the use of data to better pinpoint target audiences and drive true brand engagement is happening on a heretofore-unachievable scale, there’s still more work ahead, according to Richardson. “Part of the challenge that brands have in the space right now is we’re still trying to get this right mix of creativity and the data,” she says. “And I think we’re learning a lot more, brands are learning a lot more, but we have to get to the point where the format makes the experience and I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

The ability to change creative content and messaging on the fly has made great strides, particularly in the last two years, Richardson believes. But looking at the bigger picture with regard to creativity, the right ad for the right person at the right moment needs to go farther.

“But how do we scale that?” Richardson asks. “How do we actually bring back that love of engaging with brands again?”

Brands that have aligned themselves with a purpose are on the right track, to an extent. “I think brands are going to have to look beyond the end of their noses, so to speak, and think about what’s their role, their contribution, how is it beyond the product or service they’re offering that they can really drive a creative engagement with people,” says Richardson.

This interview is part of our series “The Road to CES,” a lead-up series in advance of CES 2017. The series is presented by FreeWheel. Please find more videos from the series here.

“What I think we’re going to start seeing with new technologies is using addressability as a way of versioning for national TV,” Winkler says in an interview with Beet.tv. “That’s really exciting stuff, particularly for our set of clients, many of whom are portfolio clients, all of whom are looking for growth.”

Media agencies have always touted their clout in getting the most advantageous rates for their clients owing to the sheer amount of money they spend. The same principle is still at play, but it’s just the starting point.

“Using technology, you can take the clout and those great rates but then deliver the right ad to the right person within that national buy,” Winkler says. “That’s a remarkable opportunity.”

More TV networks are realizing that in lieu of an increase in viewers, they need to bring more value to the table, according to Winkler. He cites NBC and Turner Broadcasting as examples of programmers using various data sets to optimize schedules on the fly. “And that’s a good thing. Just because we’re not doing pure programmatic doesn’t mean we’re not happy about the better performance we’re getting for our clients,” Winkler says.

For media agencies seeking to transition to the all-things-data approach to media planning and buying, the biggest change that Winkler has seen has been taking data out of the data silo “or even out of the digital silo, for that matter.”

OMD is seeing the biggest impact for its clients by “making data part of the beginning of the process and therefore affecting every medium that we plan and buy on behalf of our clients,” says Winkler. “When you do that, suddenly it’s 10X the impact. But only if you talk about data up front.”

As he looks ahead to CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Winkler will be trying to discern the most meaningful advances in television technology from the passing near-fads.

“We’ve seen a lot of gimmickry over the last few years, whether that’s curved TV’s or 3D TV’s,” he says.

So what went wrong? According to Winkler, manufacturers were focusing on the wrong types of technological advances.

“People want technology that makes it easier for them to watch more TV,” he explains. “Technology that lets you watch more TV is going to be embraced by the American public because we love to watch TV.”

Voice recognition could be that technological magic bullet. The ability to tell your TV set to play episode #4 of Seinfeld or a particular pro football game.

“Once you have the experience of asking technology to do something for you and it does it instantly and without hesitation and without a mistake, you will never go back,” Winkler says.

Who’s going to deliver it? Siri with Apple? Amazon Echo? Google?

“I’m not sure,” Winkler says. “That’s the new battlefront. Voice activation in the living room with a TV and may the best man win.”

This interview is part of our series “The Road to CES,” a lead-up series in advance of CES 2017. The series is presented by FreeWheel. Please find more videos from the series here.

Some in advertising are jumping to act.  “We are closely working with the IAB, 4As and ANA to identify anti-ad-blocking solutions, some of which are directly content-related,” GroupM’s managing partner for digital ad operations, Joe Barone, tells Beet.TV in this video interview.

“Publishers will have the opportunity to promote to their users – ‘If you want this content, you need to turn off the ad blocker or there might be some micropayment involved’.”

This Bloomberg article investigates the possible threat to publishers. The Washington Post has already begun blocking ad-blockers.

In truth, Apple is not launching an ad blocker. Indeed, in iAds, the Cupertino company operates a mobile advertising business of its own. But its extensions will allow Safari users to block content – whether that be mentions of the Republican party, Mail Online in its entirety or, yes, ads. Barone says Safari represents “a big chunk of traffic”. Apple is far from alone – one of the leading developers of ad block software for the desktop has just released an ad-blocking mobile browser.

An early 2014 study put the number of people blocking ads at 4.9%. Later studies seem outlandish, but are nevertheless scaring the horses.

“Some numbers say as much as 16% to 25% of US traffic is blocked,” Barone says. “It was more prevalent outside the US. We’ve reached a point where we can’t no longer say that it isn’t an issue in the US.”

“The real concern is targets like millennials, IT professionals, who are almost invariably using ad blockers.”

This interview is part of a series of videos leading up to the DMEXCO conference in Cologne. The series is presented by 4C Insights + Teletrax.

“The demand is obviously there,” ZenithOptimeda Group strategy director Chris de Cruz tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “The ways in which consumers are starting to behave is obviously moving in that direction is obviously moving in that direction.

“It’s going to be expedited by the increased form factor of the new iPhone. Then the predilection for short form content will become cemented.”

But de Cruz says simply shovelling TV shows on to mobile won’t succeed: “We are seeing an attempt to transmogrify traditional TV programmes to a mobile device. It doesn’t necessarily work. What we need to do is find a way to create a method of delivery that’s much more appropriate for people’s consumption.”

This is part of a series title the State of Video, a series sponsored by AOL Platforms. Please visit this page for all the videos from the series.

While Apple can surely introduce an elegant system for consuming video, it can’t disintermediate the existing distribution of TV content, Ireland explains.   He says that the current Apple TV is priced well and will be updated.

Also in the interview, he talks about the  growing clutter of OTT devices and the potential for consumer confusion with a plethora of “hockey puck” sized devices in the living room.

His comments on Apple begin at 3:00 minutes in to the segment.

We spoke with him earlier this month at the NAB Show.

Launched last week, the App is getting marketing support from Apple, Perpich says.

The Times is readying several new Apps including food and opinion.

For more about NYT Now, we interviewed its editor Clifford Levy.

Beet.TV interviewed Perpich and Levy at a Times media reception last week.

That’s why many auto makers, often accused of loading their dashes with old technology, are now turning their systems in to future-proof mobile mini-computers, which receive frequent updates via the cellular cloud.

“There has been a bit of a space race,” says media agency GroupM’s chairman Irwin Gotlieb in this fascinating sit-down with Beet.TV.

“Apple convinced both BMW and Mercedes to go with them. Google has always been there with Audi.In the last few weeks, General Motors has signed on with Google. Hyundai and Honda and, I believe several other automotives will go with Google.

“We will have most major manufacturers around the world likely aligned with one of the two guys. Services will be delivered in a manner that is consistent, pretty much, across all these vehicles.”

GM’s Chevrolet has been amongst the earliest adopters of this “thin client” approach, its MyLink system being just a mobile-connected touchscreen that takes advantage of iOS in particular. Apple is still yet to unveil its previously-announced iOS In The Car system in reality. Google announced its Open Automotive Alliance in January. Both initiatives are set to come to fruition in 2014.

Gotlieb reckons the mobile connected car will change the meaning of cars themselves: Initially, it’s about ensuing you don’t do certain things while you’re driving. Ten years from now, it’s going to be about ensuring you can do whatever you want while the car’s driving itself.”